"What's our wedding anniversary, Mr. Riley?" Karen asks, shooting him a bright, teasing grin. It is, maybe, a little unfair when they haven't had to fall back on that particular story for a while, but despite how dire the circumstances were, and the fact that he was only just a stranger then, it's still amusing to think back on how they met given where they've wound up now. In a way, it feels almost as if this was meant to happen, whatever they had in common binding them together inextricably from that first afternoon. She could have left him there; no harm would have come to him. But she didn't, and one thing led to another, and now, well—

He loves her, and somehow that's both earth-shattering and self-explanatory, as if it's always been the case. Maybe, for her, it has been.